Here’s the the thread. The thread we’ve all been waiting for. The “show us your LOOT!” thread. From yamadori to Yardadori. From the highest ice shorn peaks of The Rocky Mountains to your neighbor’s Jim and Debbie’s backyard. Let’s see it!
I thought it would be cool to share photos of what we’ve collected, give each other high fives and a pat on the back, and exchange information and ideas on what each of us has collected this season. Any tree you post in this thread, I think it would be great to post updates… leafing out, even next spring posting one year updates could be cool. Also if it dies, don’t worry, we won’t tell anyone… shhhh…
To kick us off I am posting what I thought was and elm, that I’ve had my eye on for the last year. I dug it from an overgrown abandoned and out of business “Tim Hortons”. R.I.P. I hear they are still going strong in Canada though. Maybe @rafi could confirm this for us. .
Though now thinking back on the leaves I remember on it from last summer, it may actually be a species of Alder. Will report in with more pics and an I.D. once it leafs out. It was obviously unwanted and was cut back very low at some point a few years ago and it responded with multiple new leaders fighting for dominance. It has two large roots, fortuitously, on either side of my preferred front and weaker rootage on the front and back, so developing an evenness to the nebari will be a priority. Here’s the pics, check it out. Forgive the unsightly tie down guy wire. With only two beefy roots to tire wire too it needed a little extra to get it to sit completely still.
Also not totally done pruning, there’s a half dead branch you can see sticking up between the two leaders I have left as well as some dead wood in a hollow on the trunk in the back that I will be taking the dremel to tonight. The leader in the left will serve to be the first branch, the leader on the right will become the new trunk line.
Too bad your Timmy in the US closed down. They sell better coffee in the US than in Canada. Excellent job at setting the primary structure. It is a bit difficult to see in the image but I would just suggest to remove the thinner branch to the right of the thick one where the wire is attached. It is out of place. Answering your question, I have 6 bloodwood maples 50 cm tall with some 20 cm nebary to collect that have been growing in the ground for some 25 years, several clump style broadleaf deciduous and hopefully a number of pine and juniper citydory if I can convince the homeowners to allow me to dig them out. But the ground is still frozen here and none of the trees outside even started to think that spring is coming, eventually, someday here in Canada. Perhaps.
Hahaha I feel your pain. I live in upstate New York and this was basically the first weekend where collecting was viable. I still have a mental list of trees I’ll be collecting over the next couple weeks. My fingers were itching!
I agree with you on that weird branch on the right, I’m only keeping it for now because it may help heal a scar faster. We’ll see how long it stays.
Ah, that explains! - I’m waiting to start digging some of these as I want to wait for them to just barely start showing signs of growth before I severely cut the root mass and also I don’t want to risk them freezing after collection. Night’s here are still constantly going below freezing.
My Winged Elm, Ulmus alata, haul. Collected February in Texas. I didn’t prune enough. Probably a forest in the future. Maybe the one in the middle gets his own pot…raft planting. It was crushed as such before I collected it…
Procumbins I believe from my neighbors yard. I dug around and thought I had two but the first potted was a rooted branch I was able to cut off. The rest I had to use my tractor to pick it up. The tractor bucket is 4 feet across for size reference. Now I’m just waiting for the rest of spring and summer to grow some finer roots before a big hair cut! I did get in and start cleaning some deadwood though. Sorry for some bad lit photos.
Thx. It’s enviable until it’s been 100 for 19 strait days and it’s only mid-July.
Thank God for the pool and the shade…
It’s crazy…these trees were dug just over a month ago, it was 25F. It has rained off and on the past 2 weeks and warmed up to 80 daytime and 55 at night. The whole world turned green this week.
Once I pulled it out of the ground and first seen the trunk as it was covered in the old foliage inside the tractor bucket I realized I had a decent trunk. There is a bunch of foilage that will stay for the top but it has some 3 to 4 foot long pencil size branches that have decent handfuls of good green needles. I am resisting cutting them off to let it help the roots recover.
This was under a ponderosa pine tree and it was full of pondo née does and it’s own dead needles. It took me 4 hours to clean out all the dead junk and dead twigs. I left most the dead branches do make decisions later. Who knows it might be helpful when styling the tree.
Red Alder collected from cliffside. This is such a weird tree! Only nature can do something like this. Not sure what I will do with this, but am happy that it is currently thriving.
Some road side pine trees my 10 and 12 year olds helped me dig over spring break. The coin is a quarter for size reference. Not quite Mirai size but something to play with.
Ume. I found this while walking my dog. The main tree is beautiful when flowering. I thought maybe there were some plants underneath and sure enough this appeared. I dug it up and potted it right away in 100% akadama. Along, elegant literati, I think.
I collected 2, one was an hedge, my wife wanted gone, I have no clue what it is.
The juniper came from a fence line that was getting cleaned out. Half of it was dead so we will see if it recovers
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